Dr. Ian Beaman was a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Accounting and Finance at Monash University, Australia’s largest university. His teaching and research specialties are in Financial Modeling and Information Systems.

He has considerable international experience which includes having visiting appointments at the National Computing Centre in Manchester (UK) and at the California State University (Sacramento). He is the author of books on “Small Business Computing” and a co-author of 550-page workbook “Financial Modelling”.

Dr. Beaman has consulted a large number of leading multinational corporations across Asia Pacific including Singapore Telecom and BHP Billiton.

Certified by International Academy of Business and Financial Management (IABFM).

Program Summary

Designed for finance professionals, this Certified Financial Modeling (CFM)™ program will give you an in-depth knowledge on how to build and design sophisticated financial models. You will learn to develop robust capital investment model, handle risks in uncertain scenarios and build rigorous models that evaluate major financial decisions for your organization. You will also learn how to forecast key financial statements, develop financial analysis and use financial models as a center-piece of the strategic planning for your organization. Led by author of highly acclaimed 550-page workbook “Financial Modeling, participants will also gain the latest cutting edge insights on risks, capital structures and costs of capital.

At the end of the program, you will receive the designation of Certified Financial Modeler™ (CFM) that you can use on your resume and business card. Internationally recognized and globally demanded, CFM is recognized in over 145 countries with over 200,000 members.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND CERTIFICATES

Delegates must meet the following criteria to be eligible to become CFM™:

Attendance – delegates must attend all sessions of the course. Delegates who miss more than two hours of the course sessions will not be eligible to sit for the course exam.

Successful completion of the course assessment – after successfully passing the exam, the certificate will be prepared by the IABFM and will be directly posted to your company address.

WHAT YOU WILL OBTAIN AFTER THIS PROGRAM

Successful completion of the course makes you a Certified Financial Modeler™. You can use the designation of CFM™ on your business card and resume

Membership to the only professional body recognized by the AACSB, the world’s leading collection of business schools

Access to the IABFM journal published online Gold Embossed Certificate with your name and designation as MIABFM (Member of the International Academy of Business and Financial Management)

Programs, dates and locations are subject to change. In accordance with Clariden Global policy, we do not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, age, national or disability in admission to our programs.

Introduction

This three-day comprehensive and highly interactive Executive Program “Certified Financial Modeling (CFM)™ Master Class” is designed to equip the participants with a practical understanding of effective financial modeling. This course covers 20 major subject areas and utilizes a variety of training techniques. Through real-life case studies, the emphasis will be on practical and pragmatic approaches.

Designed for finance professionals, this program will give you an indepth knowledge on how to build and design sophisticated financial models. You will learn to develop robust capital investment model, handle risks in uncertain scenarios and build rigorous models that evaluate major financial decisions for your organization. You will also learn how to forecast key financial statements, develop financial analysis and use financial models as a center-piece of the strategic planning for your organization. Led by author of highly acclaimed 550-page workbook “Financial Modelling, participants will also gain the latest cutting edge insights on risks, capital structures and costs of capital.

At the end of the program, you will receive the designation of Certified Financial Modeler™ (CFM) that you can use on your resume and business card. Internationally recognized and globally demanded, CFM is recognized in over 145 countries with over 200,000 members.

What You Can Expect

Learn the most effective ways to design and structure your financial models

Learn to analyze and manage financial risks with hands-on simulation practices on risks

Design and develop different types of investment models that can be used to evaluate and assess different investment and financial projects

Understand the complete range of techniques used in forecasting and projecting financial statements and managing them

Enable management to make truly uniformed decisions

Who Will Benefit Most

This executive program is designed for:

Financial Controllers & Managers

Financial, Business & Investment Analysts

Strategic, Business & Financial Planners

Risk & Treasury Professionals

Accountants

Commercial Managers

Commercial Bankers

Portfolio Managers

Model Auditors

Company Controllers

Insolvency Professionals

Corporate Valuation Specialists

Project Finance Professionals

Economists & Quants

Transaction Advisors

Business Development Managers

Program Outline

DAY 1

SPREADSHEET DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Session 1: Review of Spreadsheet Building Concepts

Importance of good spreadsheet building habits

Types of spreadsheet errors

Practices to detect and prevent spreadsheet errors

Seven good spreadsheet building habits

Session 2: Exploring Functions in a Spreadsheet Model

General format and use

Selected financial functions

Selected statistical functions

VLOOKUP and other logical functions

EXERCISE: Participants will be provided with a template that uses a number of Excel functions

Session 3: Sensitivity Analysis

What is sensitivity analysis?

How is it performed?

“Add-in” products available

EXERCISE: Participants will perform a sensitivity analysis on a spreadsheet.

MODELING APPLICATIONS

Session 4: Effective Design of a Financial Model

Basic Principles

Elements of financial models

Inputs and outputs

Financial statements

Schedules suggested framework

Key modeling tips

Session 5: Principles of Risk and Return

Volatility

Capital structures

Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)

DAY 2

MODELING APPLICATIONS

Session 6: Forecasting

Approaches to forecasting

Analyzing historical data to identify components

Long-term trends

Cyclical variations

Seasonal variations

Random variations

Introduction to modeling time series analysis

EXERCISE: Participants will use historical data for a company to prepare a revenue forecast.

Session 7: Forecasting Financial Statements

The fundamentals of using sound judgment

Forecasting the income statement

Forecasting the balance sheet

Forecasting the cash flow statement

Evaluation of the reliability of forecasts

EXERCISE: Participants will be provided with historical company data from which they will model the forecasting of financial statements.

Session 8: Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) Analysis

Determining fixed and variable costs

Calculating break-even point

Constructing CVP graph

EXERCISE: Using a pre-built model, participants will calculate the break-even point for sales, and then construct a CVP graph.

THE PRINCIPLES OF CORPORATE FINANCE

Session 9: Project Appraisal and Decision Making

The principal of Discounted Cash Flow techniques

Alternative methods of project evaluation

Why use cash flows

Identification of relevant cash flows (revenues and costs)

Calculating project returns

Understanding the nature of risk and its effect

Building risk into a project appraisal

EXERCISE: Participants will be provided with case studies relating to a number of Middle East companies where they will be able to model the cash flows, calculate the appropriate discounting factor, and calculate the expected return.

Session 10: Optimization Techniques in Financial Modeling

Elements of optimization techniques

Understanding and using linear programming

Using the Solver facility in Excel to solve linear programming problems

EXERCISE: Participants will use linear programming and the Solver facility in Excel to solve a problem of resource allocation between competing projects with different rates of return and different risk characteristics.

DAY 3

MONTE CARLO SIMULATION, MACROS, AND USER-DEFINED FUNCTIONS

Session 11: Introduction to Spreadsheet Macros

Understanding the nature of macros

Using the Excel macro recorder to create macros

Editing and enhancing recorded macros

Identifying and correcting errors in macros

Attaching macros to command buttons

EXERCISE: Participants will create a simple macro and attach the macro to a command butt on. They will then examine prewritten macro that is not operating as intended. They will use the facilities of Excel to debug and attempt to correct the error(s) as appropriate.

Session 12: Monte Carlo Simulation

The nature and uses of simulation techniques

The way Monte Carlo Simulation works

Reviewing statistical measures and how to calculate them

Mean, variance, standard deviation

Probability distributions and the normal distribution

Running a simulation and interpreting results

Exploration of a basic program to perform Monte Carlo Simulation

Session 13: Financial Model Auditing / Review

Why audit?

Excel’s auditing tools

Automated testing tools: role, purpose and limitations

Demonstration

Model documentation

Session 14: Automated Model Generation Tools

Overview: purpose, advantages, disadvantages

Demonstration

CFM™ EXAMINATION*

*Only those who successfully complete the exam will receive the Certified Financial Modeler™ designation

CFOs Leadership :

Experience Clariden Discover how our leadership program has shaped the perspectives of CFOs across Asia